[vfio-users] Usb sound card passtrough - fail

[Mateusz Górczak]

Hi guys,

Passing trough the usb controller solve my problem. Sound is clear and
everything works great. I believe this is the best option at the moment.
Thank You for Your support :)

Br,
Mateusz

2015-09-16 13:23 GMT-07:00 Scott Herold <scott at sherold.net>:

>
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 1:04 PM, Mateusz Górczak <
> gorczak.mateusz at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have been trying to passtrough my usb sound card (Creative Sound
>> Blaster X-Fi Pro USB). My host is arch linux and my guest - win 8.1. I use
>> qemu-kvm with ovmf.
>>
>> Windows recognize my sound card and works perfectly, but after a while
>> (about 30 second of playing music), a lot of noises are occured. I also
>> install windows 10 (just for compare) the problem are exactly the same. I
>> also trying run ubuntu as a guest, but after passtrough my sound card *all
>> usb devices turn off *- even the ones, which are not passtrough to guest
>> (without passing sound card, ubuntu works perfectly).
>>
>> On my host (arch) card works great, so there are no problem with the card
>> itself (I believe...; also on 'native' Windows there is no problem with the
>> card).
>>
>> Any advice? Qemu doesn't print anything useful.
>> If you need more information - just ask.
>>
>> my config (minimal - only mouse, keyboard and sound card are passtrough
>> to guest):
>>
>> qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 5G -cpu host,kvm=off \
>> -smp 4,sockets=1,cores=4,threads=2 \
>> -drive
>> if=pflash,format=raw,readonly,file=/usr/share/edk2.git/ovmf-x64/OVMF-pure-efi.fd
>> \
>> -drive
>> if=pflash,format=raw,file=/usr/share/edk2.git/ovmf-x64/OVMF_VARS-pure-efi.fd
>> \
>> -device virtio-scsi-pci,id=scsi \
>> -drive file=Downloads/virtio-win-0.1.96.iso,id=virtiocd,if=none -device
>> ide-cd,bus=ide.1,drive=virtiocd \
>> -drive file=ubuntu15.iso,id=isocd,if=none -device scsi-cd,drive=isocd \
>> -vga none \
>> -drive file=windowsUefi.img,id=disk,format=raw,if=none -device
>> scsi-hd,drive=disk \
>> -device vfio-pci,host=01:00.0 \
>> -device vfio-pci,host=01:00.1 \
>> -usb -usbdevice host:09da:1343 \
>> -usb -usbdevice host:041e:3237 \
>> -usb -usbdevice host:046d:c52b
>>
>
> I've spent the last week or so playing with an incredibly similar setup,
> and what I've found is that USB Passthrough is simply not good for audio.
> I've tried two alternate options, both of which work, one better than the
> other.  First, I was able to assign my HDMI audio device from my GPU to my
> guest with vfio-pci.  I then ran audio through my monitor (no integrated
> speakers) and then to speaker output from my monitor.  I found the audio
> levels to be extremely low with that option, with limited ways to increase
> volume.
>
> The second option was doing a PCI device assignment of my integrated audio
> controller.  This option worked significantly better, as I didn't have to
> reconnect any speakers in a different configuration.  Of course, you will
> only have audio on either the host or the VM with this option.  There are
> still slight pops and noise in the audio, but it's very infrequent, and
> typically only in more intensive games at this point.  I found that I could
> use the USB sound card on the host without issue in this configuration.
>
> The only problem I've come across in option 2 is that occasionally on VM
> poweroff, the PCI audio doesn't get properly recognized by pulseaudio and I
> need to run "pulseaudio -k" as non-root user to reestablish sound on the
> host.
>
>
>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
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